COMRADE Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, as President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, did not only fight for jobs, but for decent jobs as was witnessed in his anti-casualisation campaigns. Now as Governor of Edo State, Comrade Oshiomhole, after positively impacting on the lives of people of Edo State directly through new roads, renovated schools, clinics, hospitals; water and electricity projects, mass transit buses, employment generation, paying wages as when due, but has given indication of plans for human capital development among others.

At his second term inauguration ceremony, Comrade Oshiomhole did not only assure that his government would deliver on all its promises and complete on-going projects, he equally declared “we will continue to work on infrastructure, we plan, in the next four years, to place emphasis on promoting sustainable economic growth and development.

Our Government will emphasize human capital development, training and retraining of teachers and public servants; promotion of agriculture for food production, employment and increased income to our farmers and rural dwellers; small and medium scale industrial development.”

” We shall continue to attract local and foreign investors to Edo State so as to create more jobs for our people. We shall continue with to use Information and Communications Technology, ICT, and ensure that all forms of waste are eliminated in the public service.

In collaboration with the security agencies, we shall continue to work hard, to ensure and assure the safety and security of our people. Our goal is to ensure that Edo State becomes a major investors’ haven in Nigeria and that our small and medium scale industries are fed with products from our agricultural initiatives.”

Jobs creation

Explaining briefly, the governor said “Our goal is increase the gross domestic product (GDP) of Edo State, create jobs for our people and forge strong linkages between agriculture and industry. To achieve this, our government will provide substantial incentives such as provision of rural roads and other incentives to promote large scale commercial agriculture.

Emphasis will be placed on productive partnerships, processing and storage that will generate new opportunities for training and income to our small scale industries and farmers. We are aware that in some local governments, the impact of governance, policies and leadership at the local level has not been visible or felt by the people.

We will conduct local government elections early next year. Our focus would be to ensure that qualified, committed, exposed, capable and innovative candidates that will make the required difference in the lives of the people participate.”

Youths, women empowerment

“We need men and women that will reinvigorate the communities, deploy resources carefully and strategically, complete on-going projects, stimulate production, and initiate new realistic projects. This would stem migration to the rural areas and encourage productivity at the local levels.

Sectors such as health, youth and women empowerment, education, agriculture, rural industries, housing and security must take priority. The monitoring of the activities and performances of local governments will become a priority of government because it is not a crime to live in the rural areas. Our government will put an end to the era of absentee local government chairmen and design pro-people programmes to make life in the rural areas worth living.”

“On education, while we shall continue to rebuild school structures across the State, we intend to pay special attention to the content and context of the schools. No markets, drinking joints or hotels would be allowed around the established perimeters of our schools so as to curtail some social vices associated with exposure of our children.

Teachers will be monitored to eliminate ghost teachers, lateness, and poor delivery. A special fund will be created to ensure retraining, especially in the area of Information and Communication Technology, ICT. We will emphasize technical education geared towards skill for jobs. Our schools will be required to establish libraries and reading rooms with computers to broaden the world-views of our children and keep them at par with their contemporaries around the world.”

10, 000 jobs underway

As part of the jobs creation agenda, a groundbreaking ceremony of a $2 billion fertilizer plant, the biggest in Africa to be sited in Agenebode, Edo State will be done before the end of January, next year. Disclosing this at a reception, in Benin City, as part of activities to mark the 2nd term inauguration of Governor Adams Oshiomhole, President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said arrangements had been concluded for the ceremony this December or before the end of January 2013.

Alhaji Dangote said the company, expected to employ more than ten thousand people directly and indirectly, would be completed in three years.He said: “yes we will build the biggest fertilizer plant in Africa here in Edo State. Comrade Oshiomhole has delivered on road, infrastructure, but now he’s going to deliver on job creation. We will partner with him to make sure he gives us a conducive environment to create jobs here in Edo State.”